Page:Meta Stern Lilienthal - From Fireside to Factory (c. 1916).djvu/7

 occurred with appalling frequency, and even when there was no epidemic the death-rate was immense. This high death-rate had to be offset by a high birth-rate, and that was one reason for the large families of colonial days. The eighteenth century cities had no water supply either, and no illumination of the streets at night. There was the well on the market place to which the women came several times each day to fill their pails and buckets, and as for illumination, there was no need for it, since a respectable citizen had no business on the streets at night. In some of the wealthier sections one might now and then find a lamp strung up between two opposite houses, but such extravagance was rare. As a rule, the city was in utter darkness when there was no moon in the sky. Should some stranger have wandered about after night-fall, he would not have been likely to meet anyone but the night-watchman, with his lantern and horn, calling out the hours and the state of weather, and if it was after nine o'clock the night-watchman would surely have stopped him to ask his name and to demand what business he had on the street.

Communication between the different cities was exceedingly slow and difficult. The stage-coach and the sail-boat were the only means of transportation. Travelling by water was considered safer, but the time of arrival was always uncertain, since sail-boats and the wind could not be controlled by any time-table. Travelling by land was a difficult undertaking. The stage-coaches were slow, clumsy and uncomfortable. The roads over which they had to go were always in a wretched condition. After heavy rains or snow-storms, it frequently happened that the passengers all had to get out and pry the stage out of the mud with fence-rails. There were regular stage-lines, running once a week, between New York and Philadelphia, and between New York and Boston. The trip from New York to Philadelphia took three days. Tn 1766 an enterprising individual established a stage-line that made the trip in two days, and proudly called his stage the Flying Machine. That was 150 years before the dream of a real flying machine was materialized. Some travelling was done on horse-back and the mails were carried on horseback also. But to write a letter was not a common, every-day